Product updates

Some drivers may be more experienced than others or drive a more suitable vehicle, making them better equipped to carry out certain stops.

It’s now easy for dispatchers to only allow certain drivers to carry out specific stops.

How to allow certain drivers to make specific stops:⁠

• On a route select or add a stop
• Under Stop Setup click the Allowed drivers drop-down menu
• Select the driver or drivers that are suitable to complete that stop
• Optimize the route, and that stop will only be assigned to a permitted driver

POD requirements can now be turned on or off for specific stops. Drivers can skip POD collection when it is not needed, which helps them to save valuable time across the duration of their route.

How to specify proof of delivery requirements⁠

• Go to Settings > Proof of delivery
• Set account level defaults for POD collection
• When uploading route data, set POD as required or not required
• On a route, change the POD settings for a stop in Stop Setup

Dispatchers can now see the real-time status of stops on an active route and make live changes to increase the chances of successful delivery.

How dynamic stop status icons work⁠

Dynamic stop status icons are live indicators of a stop’s delivery progress:

• Orange dot = The stop is at risk of being early or late
• Green tick = The stop was completed on time
• Orange tick = The stop was completed early or late
• Red cross = The stop was not completed

Hover over each icon for additional detail about:

• Delivery status
• Arrival time
• Customer's ETA

Dispatchers can now choose to add customer service contact details to the delivery information available to customers, providing a better delivery experience to customers who need help.

Delivery tracking information provided to customers now includes:⁠

• Dynamic estimated time of delivery
• Delivery status
• Proof of delivery information
• The ability for the customer to add delivery instructions
• Customer service contact email and/or telephone number
• Sender name and address
• Shareable tracking link

Dispatchers who need to modify routes that are already in progress can do so whilst automatically notifying drivers about the changes that have been made.

A dispatcher or admin can now:⁠

• Add or make changes to existing stops on a live route
• Preview changes
• Reoptimize a live route to include the latest changes
• Save or discard changes
• Notify the driver of the changes automatically

Same-day updates to routes are now easily carried out by Dispatchers and communicated instantly to drivers.

Toll roads can contribute to increased delivery costs, affecting profitability.

New account-wide settings now allow dispatchers and drivers to create delivery routes that automatically avoid toll roads.

How to set avoid toll preferences:⁠

• Go to Settings > Route optimization
• Set ‘Avoid tolls’ to on
• Make sure drivers have their vehicle type set to ‘Car’
• Make sure drivers also have their navigation app set to ‘avoid tolls’

Previously, large teams with multiple drivers and routes may have experienced a slight lag as the Overview Dashboard page loaded.

Page loading performance has been improved so that large amounts of data can be quickly retrieved, processed, and displayed.

The Overview Dashboard page loads 50% faster for small teams and 3x faster for large ones, giving almost instant access to a view of daily delivery activity.

In addition to the default map view, dispatchers and admins can now select satellite view for a photographic bird's eye view of routes.

This provides detailed satellite imagery of the landscape, which can help when trying to pinpoint hard-to-find or incorrectly mapped stops.

How to select satellite view⁠

• Select a route
• In the top, right-hand corner of the map view are the options Map/Satellite
• Click on Satellite
• Click Map to swap back to the default map view

Spoke Dispatch users can now access and benefit from Spoke’s Webhook API V0.1b

The API enables two different software programs to communicate and provides access to useful event-based data.

API Data⁠

The API publishes data relating to three key events:

• When a route is sent to a driver
• When a route is started
• When a stop is attempted

How to integrate with Spoke’s API⁠

Go to Settings > API to read the complete technical documentation and best practices.

On a route, dispatchers can select:

• a single/multiple stops to be attempted first
• a single/multiple stops to be attempted last

This allows drivers to complete priority deliveries at the beginning of their route and leave less urgent deliveries until the end.

How to select single/multiple stops to be attempted first or last⁠

• Click on a stop
• Under Stop Setup, select First or Last
• Stops marked as First will be attempted at the start of the route
• Stops marked as Last will be attempted at the end of the route
• There is no min/max limit on the number of stops you can mark as First/Last
• The default for any stop not marked as First/Last is Auto
• Stops marked as Auto will be added to the route order when it is optimized